RAR is the native format of WinRAR archiver. Like ZIP, RAR files are data containers, they store one or several files in the compressed form.
WinRAR has a built-in rar repair feature. When WinRAR opens a compressed file which seems to be damaged, it will attempt to repair it. You may also use the rar repair feature from WinRAR menu, tools, repair corrupted file, or use "ALT" + R hot button to open the rar file repair feature.
WinRAR can only repair RAR and ZIP compressed file. The WinRAR repair is using the compressed file data and the extension, and it automatic detect compressed file type, but the user may also select the compressed file type manually. The source compressed file is not changed, the recovered compressed data will be preserved into the new compressed file. The new compressed file will be named as _recover.rar or _reconst.rar. If it has not restored the data, maybe the RAR compressed file is in very bad condition and not recoverable in this case.
You may also use third-party rar file repair software to recover the corrupted or damaged rar file.
Advanced RAR Repair from DataNumen Inc.
Advanced RAR Repair(ARAR) is a powerful tool to repair corrupt or damaged RAR archives. It uses advanced technologies to scan the corrupt or damaged RAR archives and recover your files in it as much as possible, so to minimize the loss in file corruption. Currently ARAR supports to recover all versions of RAR and SFX archives. Moreover, it is integrated with Windows Explorer, supports drag & drop operations and command line parameters, which will make you repair files easily and quickly.
Usage:
Click "Repair" tab in the dialog, you can start repairing corrupt RAR or SFX archives:
1. Input or select the corrupt RAR or SFX archive to be repaired. You may also click the search button to search and select the pst files to be repaired in the local computer.
2. In "Output recovered files in archive to:", specify a directory where recovered files in RAR archives are outputted.
3. Click "Start Repair" button to start the repair process. You will see the change in progress bar. If you want to abort the repair process, click the "Stop Repair" button.
4. After the repair process, Advanced RAR Repair will scan the corrupt RAR or SFX archive and for each file in the archive, Advanced RAR Repair will try to recover and save it into the directory specified in step 2.
5. You can click the "Upload File" button to open the file upload dialog. In the dialog, you can click "Start Upload" to upload the source corrupt RAR or SFX archive to our ftp server. You may also input additional information, such as your contact information, a brief description of your file corruption, or your problem in the "Comment for the files" before you upload the files. After your files are uploaded, our qualified engineers in file analysis center will try to analyze your file and provide the best data recovery solution to you.
6. You can click the "Save Log" button to save the repair log into a file. You can also include additional information in the log file by selecting the "Include System Information" option in the save file dialog. These information can help our technical supports to diagnose your system and solve your problems more efficiently.
